Website Update: Accounted For

Accounted For is an accounting business operating in Bracebridge, Ontario and serving the Gravenhurst and Huntsville vicinity. The owner of the business, Laura, visits many of her clients in person, and deals with others by computer and telephone.

Accounted For provides personalized tax filing, payroll services, and bookkeeping. Whether you have a unique personal income tax situation (truck driver? stock trader? rental properties?), want to get your business finances tightened up, or just have some simple routine filings, she'll get the job done, and at an amazing price. She can also explain CRA correspondence and help you with audits if necessary.

This has been a top-10 ranking website since it was built many years ago, when the owner was originally in Peterborough. This change is a partly cosmetic, but primarily to re-target the website to residents of the Bracebridge area.

The site has just one page of content, designed to help a visitor determine if Accounted For provides the accounting services they need. It is modest compared to other accounting sites with many pages and flashy designs, but her clients aren't looking for a huge international accounting firm, and the simple look reflects the small business owners who form most of her clientele. I'm happy to continue providing this terrific small business with top-10 rankings in a field of much larger competitors.

10 Reasons To Never Use Auto-Playing Sound or Video

Here's why auto-playing audio and video on a business website is a pointless, irritating interruption that should never be done (in no particular order):

1) people surf the web while listening to TV, music, audio books, etc.; sudden overlapping noise is baffling and infuriating

2) people surf the web while on Skype and other chat programs, and now you've pissed off everyone involved

3) for people listening to music wearing headphones, unexpected sounds are even more shocking

4) only people with their speakers/headphones turned on will hear it anyway, so why bother?

5) some devices don't even have speakers; why auto-run something if users can't experience it?

6) the volume can be too loud, but also too quiet; users may not realize anything is playing

7) audio and video eats up expensive bandwidth for users, especially on cellular and mobile networks

8) people will leave rather than waste time figuring out how to turn it off

9) it's a horrible reminder of long ago when audio/video was a new gimmick web designers could offer clients

10) click-to-play is the solution, and gives you analytics that reflect intentional listens/views instead of meaningless "plays"